A Changing of the Guard

By Corinna Turner

A DYING PRIEST. A BOTCHED EXECUTION. A YOUNG MAN ON THE BRINK.
Tomas Flores hates serving on the prison’s Death Squad—and now he may be about to lose his job thanks to his actions during Carl Jarrold’s hellish execution. Desperate and conflicted, where can he turn?
Father Jacob Thompson has spent decades opening his heart to convicted murderers—only to watch them die. Now his last black sheep is safely gathered in and he’s ready to rest—but will the Lord let him?
If you loved the tense, “psychologically-compelling,” spiritual thriller Three Last Things: or, the Hounding of Carl Jarrold, Soulless Assassin, then this heart-wrenching, emotionally-taut sequel is for you.
Buy this short novella for more high-stakes drama today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Corinna Turner
• Release date: Mar 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781910806371

Corinna Turner

Corinna Turner has been writing since she was fourteen and likes strong protagonists with plenty of integrity. She has an MA in English from Oxford University, but has foolishly gone on to work with both children and animals! Juggling work with the disabled and being a midwife to sheep, she spends as much time as she can in a little hut at the bottom of the garden, writing.She is a Catholic Christian with roots in the Methodist and Anglican churches. A keen cinema-goer, she lives in the UK with her Giant African Land Snail, Peter, who has a six inch long shell and an even larger foot!

Book preview

PRAISE FOR CORINNA TURNER’S BOOKS

LIBERATION: nominated for the Carnegie Medal Award 2016

ELFLING: 1st prize, Teen Fiction, CPA Book Awards 2019

I AM MARGARET & BANE’S EYES: finalists, CALA Award 2016/2018

LIBERATION & THE SIEGE OF REGINALD HILL: 3rd place, CPA Book Awards 2016/2019

PRAISE FOR I AM MARGARET

Great style—very good characters and pace. Definitely a book worth reading, like The Hunger Games.

EOIN COLFER, author of the Artemis Fowl books

PRAISE FOR THREE LAST THINGS

Beautiful! Corinna Turner is one dang good writer!

REGINA DOMAN, author of The Angel in the Waters and the award-winning Fairytale Novels series.

Fantastically good! It made me cry real tears, circumventing all my defenses. I have never read a more psychologically-compelling account of conversion anywhere. It makes very complex and sophisticated truths about grace, sin, freedom, mercy, justice, atonement, redemption, repentance, and salvation crystal clear and compelling, without being cloying or nice, or contrived.

DR. VICTORIA SEED, Theologian and Speaker

WOW! I was soooo on the edge of my seat! Tense, and suspenseful, and touching, it had me alternating between laughing out loud and cringing and cheering and wanting to cry. I totally loved it!

SUSAN PEEK, author of the God’s Forgotten Friends series

One of the most moving stories I've ever read.

PENNY CAIRD

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A CHANGING OF THE GUARD

CORINNA TURNER

Copyright 2021 Corinna Turner

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License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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CONTENTS

A CHANGING OF THE GUARD

BROTHERS Sneak Peek

Other Books by Corinna Turner

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Connect with Corinna Turner

Boring Legal Bit

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A CHANGING OF THE GUARD

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All which thy child’s mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

Rise, clasp My hand, and come!

Francis Thompson,

‘The Hound of Heaven’

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~ FR. JACOB THOMPSON ~

The execution doesn’t take as long as usual. Well, how can it? From Carl’s rapidly fading consciousness as I baptized him, the first drug was already in his veins. I’ve missed all the lead-in.

How much lead-in? What caused this extraordinary delay? It should’ve been over about an hour ago. No matter. Chest tight with an all-too-familiar anguish that has nothing to do with the physical pain gnawing my body, I push the questions from my mind. Keeping my eyes on Carl’s unconscious—please, Lord?—body there on the death gurney, I resist the urge to close my eyes. Always feels too much like abandonment.

Apparently, I’m more interesting than Carl—at any rate, I feel the gaze of the viewing gallery’s other occupants on me. I vaguely recall glimpsing only four people as Tom and his comrade marched me in and deposited me in this chair, so I am clearly in with the press/official witness/family of the convicted—not that there will be any of the latter present. Unlikely they would dump me in with the victims’ relatives, after the show I just put on in the execution chamber.

If I so much as make eye contact, the press will be on me. I concentrate on Carl, on praying for Carl, although judging by his peaceful smile at the end, after I had washed his grievous sins away, he is heading straight into his heavenly Father’s arms. I suspect it would have been an open and shut case of baptism by desire if I hadn’t made it in time, but it’s nice to be certain. Carl definitely needed that certainty.

In fact...yes, he has arrived. After what felt like twenty minutes, so was probably only ten, they are pronouncing him dead. A glimpse of young Tomas Flores’ tense face as he steps forward and hits the button to lower the blinds over the observation windows is enough to confirm the monumental foul-up I already suspect, though I am none the wiser as to how exactly it unfolded.

Well, however bad it was, Carl is well out of it now. Unlike me.

The gazes of the press and official witnesses press on me even harder, so, emotionally as well as physically exhausted, I opt for bowing my head, closing my eyes and praying some more as a couple of tears make cool tracks down my cheeks. After the way I had to struggle past two prison guards to reach Carl in the execution chamber, I am still far too tired to do anything but sit quietly. Indeed, I’m not sure I will summon the energy to stand ever again. I must have been running on pure adrenaline. How else does a half-dead almost-eighty-year-old prevail over two healthy young men? Well, the spiritual and emotional blackmail sure did help.

The door to the observation room clicks open, and a